Sermons

Deacon Sheila expounds on some uncomfortable elements to God’s Economy. Franciscan Blessing May God bless you with anger At injustice, oppression, And exploitation of people, So that you may work for Justice, freedom and peace. May God bless you with tears, To shed for those who suffer pain, Rejection, hunger and war, So that […]

Fr. Brad brings us to the seedy underbelly of language–Biblical, Social, and its use for Justice. A Prayer of St. Chrysostom Almighty God, you have given us grace at this time with one accord to make our common supplication to you; and you have promised through your well-beloved Son that when two or three […]

ON September 10th, St. Paul’s Episcopal celebrated Festival Sunday! If you hear a child crying during the sermon, it is because we also celebrated the baptism of little Devin Sobek (congratulations!). Fr. Brad speaks to the theme of Authority in Christian Expression.

We turn a bit of a corner today. We’re still in the middle of the Easter season, but the focus of our attention shifts a bit.

The last few weeks, we’ve heard stories about various appearances that the risen Lord made to his disciples after his resurrection. Two weeks ago, we heard the story of Thomas’s encounter with Jesus, and we heard Jesus’ words, “blessed are those who have not seen and yet who have come to believe.” Last week, we heard about two disciples who had an encounter with Jesus while travelling on the road to Emmaus. The point of these stories is to help clarify what the early church was trying to say about the resurrection of Jesus. The message of these stories is that, yes, he was raised from the dead, and, yes, we have seen him, and, yes, we know it’s hard to believe but here are the facts.

Front and center in today’s gospel is the body of Jesus: we have two stories of two different appearances that Jesus made to his disciples following his resurrection, and both stories highlight the embodied nature of the risen Lord. But there are some very interesting and very significant subtleties at work here as well: what it means to be a body and how the experience of embodiment bears on the life of faith has changed. Before the cross, being a body meant one thing, but now after the cross being a body means something else.